IBM and Microsoft will provide their respective enterprise software on Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud to drive hybrid cloud.
The partnership enables their clients, partners and developers to have more choice in the cloud, drive new business opportunities, boost innovation and reduce costs.
Microsoft said this agreement enable customers to take advantage of the enterprise performance and hybrid capabilities of Azure.
IBM said clients will gain access to IBM’s middleware and will have an even greater level of choice over the tools that they use to build and deploy their cloud environments.
IBM and Microsoft will make key IBM middleware such as WebSphere Liberty, MQ, and DB2 available on Microsoft Azure.
Windows Server and SQL Server will be offered on IBM Cloud.
IBM and Microsoft are working together to deliver a Microsoft .NET runtime for IBM’s Bluemix cloud development platform.
IBM will expand support of its software running on Windows Server Hyper-V, and the companies plan to make IBM Pure Application Service available on Azure.
Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president, Software and Cloud Solutions Group, IBM, said: “This deal reinforces IBM’s strategy in providing open cloud technology for the enterprise.”
IBM and Microsoft will make products within IBM’s middleware software portfolio, including WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ and DB2 database software, available in the Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines service for development and production deployment.
Microsoft and IBM are working together to provide .NET runtimes, along with relevant tooling, in IBM Bluemix. The companies will begin with a limited preview offering of .NET operating within Bluemix.
The companies also plan to make IBM Pure Application Service available on both Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer for automated deployment, configuration and license management in a hybrid cloud environment.
“Microsoft is committed to helping enterprise customers realize the tremendous benefits of cloud computing across their own systems, partner clouds and Microsoft Azure,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft.
Rajani Baburajan
[email protected]